Final Exams

The final exams had finally begun. Just like during the midterms, I only solved what I could and guessed on everything else. After finishing my meal, I stopped by the dormitory and happened to receive a fresh, piping-hot delivery that had just arrived.

“The sender is… Roxana Sprouse?”

It seemed she had sent something as thanks for finding that video. I immediately tore open the packaging.

“What the hell is this?”

Inside was a luxurious single pill wrapped in high-grade gold leaf, along with a letter and an instruction manual placed on top. I pulled out the letter, and my eyes fell on elegant, delicate handwriting.

The letter was concise yet neat. I folded it and opened the instruction manual.

My gaze shifted from the manual to the pill itself.

“Isn’t this a virility booster?”

I had obtained this item a few times in the game before. Back then, I’d grumbled about why a game without any 19+ elements would even make something like this. At the same time, I’d secretly gotten my hopes up, only to rage when there wasn’t even a single kiss scene, let alone anything adult.

Anyway, the important thing was that Roxana Sprouse had just sent me a virility pill.

“What does this even mean?”

Suddenly, Yas’s voice flashed through my mind.

Could that really be what she meant? For a moment I was greatly shaken, but then I remembered what kind of person Roxana was.

“No way.”

Come to think of it, she was the one who put a harpy in the freshman class placement test so the student would get raped. Something like this could easily be brushed off as one of her usual pranks. Having reached that conclusion, I quickly regained my composure.

“Well, it’s not a bad thing either way.”

Whatever her intention was, as a man I couldn’t refuse something that would improve my virility. Besides, even though the description used the words “stamina” and “virility,” it ultimately meant my base physical stat would increase. I had to take it.

Without hesitation, I swallowed the pill.

Gulp!

The pill melted in my mouth in the blink of an eye and slid smoothly down my throat.

My stamina had shot up by a full five points. At the same time, I felt a heavy weight between my legs. When I lifted the front of my pants to check, I couldn’t help but gasp in admiration.

“Wow, that’s impressive.”

It looked like it had grown by at least five centimeters. It had already been quite massive, but now it was big enough that even the guys in porn videos featuring black actors would be jealous. I had noticed that as my stamina stat grew, my virility increased and its size gradually got bigger, but it seemed all five points from this pill had gone straight into that area.

As expected of an elixir, it really was amazing. If I could, I’d want to earn a ton of money and binge on elixirs like crazy, but it took time to fully digest their energy, and taking multiple doses drastically reduced their effectiveness. So that wasn’t an option.

I boldly shook off the momentary temptation and cleaned up. I stored Roxana’s letter in my subspace pouch and tossed everything else into the trash.

After finishing, I lay down on the bed.

“By the way, I guess it’s about time to make a decision.”

It was already June. My agreement with Kain had only been for the first semester, which meant our deal would end in about a month.

Could I really grow properly by training alone without Kain’s help? Absolutely not. I’d probably struggle just figuring out how to train, and even then I wouldn’t do it properly, slowing my growth several times over.

In the end, I had no choice but to advance my relationship with Kain somehow.

“Looks like I’ll need to visit the information guild soon.”

There was a lot I needed to do.

Early the next morning, I was running laps around the clearing. The moment I finished my hundredth lap, I collapsed onto the ground.

“Haa… haa!”

Thump! Thump!

My heart was pounding like it would burst. I’d pushed myself as hard as possible today because I had something to say to Kain and wanted to finish quickly, but it seemed I’d overdone it a bit. Despite that, a sense of pride was leaking out from deep inside my heart.

It didn’t even take an hour.

On the first day, just running a hundred laps around the clearing had taken me the entire morning. I really had grown a lot. What’s more, unlike back then, I wasn’t even using the Thread of Infinity to restrict my movements right now. If I had doubled the restrictions with the thread, I would have finished the laps in less than thirty minutes instead of an hour.

I lay there catching my breath until the sweat cooled and the breeze felt refreshing, then stood up. When I looked inside the snack bar, Kain was already sitting on a stool at the counter, flipping through a magazine. I walked over to him.

“You’re already done? You’ve definitely gotten faster.”

“Yes. Thanks to you.”

“Good. Then show me what you learned last week. Wait, what did we learn last week again?”

Whether he had genuinely forgotten or was deliberately trying to annoy me, Kain couldn’t remember what he had personally taught me just a week ago. Staring into those rotten, glassy eyes, I pulled a thick stack of documents from my subspace pouch and held them out.

“Before that, please take a look at this.”

“What? What is this?”

“You’ll understand once you read it. It’s extremely important information for you, Kain.”

At my meaningful words, Kain stared at my face for a moment before shifting his gaze to the documents. His initially indifferent expression gradually hardened, and the speed at which he flipped through the pages increased. He devoured every single document in an instant.

A brief silence followed.

Then, before I could even register it, Kain had closed the distance and grabbed me by the throat with one hand, lifting me off the ground.

Crunch!

The pain of my windpipe being crushed. I instinctively grabbed his forearm and tried to pry it off, but it was useless. Despite his unassuming appearance, he was a monster over level 300. There was no way someone like me could overcome those steel-like muscles that covered his entire body.

Fuck, what kind of monster is this?!

What surprised me wasn’t Kain’s strength. It was his speed. When I glanced back at where he had been sitting, his afterimage was only now fading away. He had moved so fast that a residual image lingered for a split second, making it look like his body had split in two.

At that moment, Kain’s eyes gleamed fiercely as he growled.

“Where did you get this?”

“Ugh! It’s useful information, isn’t it?”

“Tell me the truth. Or you die right here.”

As if to prove he wasn’t bluffing, killing intent poured out of Kain’s body. The will of a master like him was a weapon in itself. The suffocating pressure and the fear of death gripped me.

But ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I had already experienced death once. Thanks to that, I didn’t fall into a panic and was able to continue the conversation slowly.

“I obtained it by commissioning the information guild. Where else would I get something like this?”

“Bullshit! Do you think I haven’t tried that? This is information that even the Empire’s intelligence department couldn’t uncover. It’s not something an information guild could possibly obtain. Where did you get it? Lie one more time and I’ll blow your head off. Speak!”

I could say it with certainty. Kain couldn’t kill me. Because the information written on those documents was that valuable and precious to him.

There’s no way he’d easily give up a clue to his revenge.

About ten years ago, he had lost his lover to a necromancer who was an Apostle of the Dark Cult. Not only that, her corpse had been stolen and turned into the necromancer’s loyal puppet, making her an enemy of the Empire. Of course he would be desperate.

I gave the answer I had prepared in advance.

“Kuh! As expected, you don’t fall for it. The truth is, I obtained this information from my family.”

“Your family? The Priuli Marquisate has information like this? You think I’ll believe that?”

Even as he said that, Kain seemed to think it was possible, because he slowly loosened his grip. It made sense—logically, if an academy freshman who was nothing more than a good-for-nothing wanted to obtain information like this, relying on his family would be the best option.

Now all I had to do was attach a suitable reason.

“It’s true. The Priuli Marquisate is located on the northern frontier, so exchanges with other territories are difficult. That also works in reverse. It means information from the marquisate has a hard time reaching the center.”

“So that’s why the intelligence department didn’t know? No matter what, that doesn’t make sense. There’s no way they would miss information about the Dark Cult!”

“Then maybe the middleman delivering the information omitted it.”

“Are you saying there’s a spy from the Dark Cult inside the intelligence department?”

“Yes. Doesn’t that explain everything?”

In reality, there was indeed a spy from the Dark Cult inside the intelligence department. However, he was merely a low-ranking member with no authority to control information. If the cult had infiltrated that deeply, the Empire would have already been destroyed.

But the truth didn’t matter. The goal was simply to make Kain think it was possible. That way, my own suspiciousness would naturally be covered up.

“Do you believe me now?”

“……Let’s say I do. Then what is your purpose? Why are you showing this to me? What do you want?”

The time had finally come. I suppressed my pounding heart and revealed my true objective.

“Please take me as your disciple.”

“What?”

“Take me as your disciple. I need to get stronger. There’s only a month left in the first semester. I’ll continue bringing you useful information, so please keep teaching me.”

“……You crazy bastard.”

The strength completely left Kain’s hand. After a few minutes, when my feet finally touched the ground again and I was rubbing my neck, he scratched his head irritably and asked.

“Is that really all? You risked your life just to ask for something so trivial?”

“Trivial? I will get stronger by any means necessary. Risking my life is nothing to me.”

I had been confident I wouldn’t actually die, and more importantly, if I was afraid of death and did nothing, I would eventually be crushed by reality. I had to become stronger if I wanted to achieve my revenge.

Perhaps sensing that resolve, Kain let out a long sigh and turned around.

“Follow me.”

“Huh?”

“I said follow me. There’s somewhere we need to go.”

With that, he started walking without waiting for a reply. I stared blankly at his back for a moment before realizing this was essentially his way of accepting, and I hurriedly followed after him.

The place we arrived at was a storage room in the corner of the snack bar. There were no items inside, but it was strangely clean, suggesting it was well-maintained.

At that moment, Kain lifted a wooden plank from the floor.

Creeeeak—

“Go in.”

Beneath the wooden plank was a staircase leading underground. Mana stones were embedded at regular intervals, brightly illuminating the long passage.

When I looked at Kain in confusion, he frowned and urged me.

“Didn’t I tell you to go? Do I have to say it twice?”

“You have to at least tell me what it is.”

“You’ll understand when you get there. Stop making me repeat myself and move.”

This stubborn bastard. Even though I was frustrated that he absolutely refused to give me an answer, I shook my head and stepped down into the basement.

A short while later, we arrived at a vast, rectangular space.

“What is this place?”

“It’s a training area. One I use.”

“A place you use?”

“That’s right. Did you think I just lounged around in the snack bar every day?”

I couldn’t bring myself to say yes. As I awkwardly scratched my cheek, Kain clicked his tongue and walked to the center. The moment he stepped on the circular pattern on the floor, a tremendous surge of mana sounded, and a magic circle appeared in front of him. From within it, mana bullets were fired.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

One bullet ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠per side, four in total, all aiming for Kain’s openings. Of course, he didn’t even move his feet and simply dodged them all without issue.

The mana seemed to cut through empty air and get absorbed into the opposite wall, only to double in number and shoot out again. In that manner, eight, sixteen, thirty-two… The mana bullets kept doubling until they filled my entire field of vision.

Now all I could see were countless mana bullets and the sound of them exploding everywhere. Then, at some point, every single mana bullet vanished as if it had been washed away. And Kain had disappeared as well.

“Huh? Where did he go?”

As I looked around in confusion, a familiar voice came from right beside me.

“Did you see it clearly?”

Startled, I whipped my head around to see Kain standing there as calm as ever.

“Whoa! You scared me! Can’t you at least make some noise?”

“Is that really necessary? Train your senses more. I’m your master now, so you’ll have to adjust to me.”

“Oh, so you’ve really decided to accept me?”

“That was the deal. Now you try it. From now on, we’ll be training here in the mornings. You can stop running laps around the clearing.”

“Really? That ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠works for me! I’ll give it a try.”

I walked confidently toward the center. From what I had seen Kain do earlier, stepping on the circular pattern in the center activated it, and leaving the circle stopped it. That meant even if I missed some mana bullets, as long as I got outside the circle, I wouldn’t get hit by follow-up attacks!

With that judgment, I activated the magic circle—only to be greeted by endless violence! Even when I desperately squeezed out every ounce of strength to escape the circle, the mana bullets kept firing without stopping. In the end, one mistake turned into eternal pain. I was beaten by the mana bullets until I was on the verge of death, then finally passed out.